Intel's upcoming Sapphire Rapids processors have faced multiple delays over the past few years. Built on Intel 7 manufacturing process, the CPU is supposed to bring new advances for Intel's clients and significant performance uplifts. However, TrendForce reports that the mass production of Sapphire Rapids processors will be delayed from Q4 of 2022 to the first half of 2023. The reason for this (yet another) delay is that the Sapphire Rapids MCC die is facing a meager yield on Intel 7 manufacturing technology, estimated to be at only 50-60% at the time of writing. Economically, this die-yielding percentage is not profitable for Intel since many dies are turning out to be defective.

This move will stop many OEMs and cloud service providers (CSPs) from rolling out products based on the Sapphire Rapids design and will have to delay it until next year's mass production. On the contrary, AMD is likely to reap the benefits of Intel's delay, and AMD's x86 server market share will jump from 15% in 2022 to 23% in 2023. Given that AMD ships processors with the highest core counts, many companies will opt for AMD's solutions in their data centers. With more companies being concerned by their TCO measures with rising energy costs, favors fall in the hand of single-socket servers.

Intel's third quarter financials that the company released yesterday, weren't exactly what you'd call stellar. This has put Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger in a bind, as he's been forced to announce cost cuts of US$3 billion annually, starting 2023, but that it'll grow to somewhere between US$8 to 10 billion by 2025. Although Gelsinger didn't reveal the specifics of what these cost cuts will entail, he did mention quite a few potentials, according to The Register. Gelisinger stated that Intel "need to balance increased investment in areas like leadership in [technology development], product, and capacity [at new plants under construction] in Ohio and Germany, with the efficiency measures elsewhere as we drive to have best in class structures."

Intel's CFO David Zinsner, told Barron's that the company will be cutting a "meaningful number" of employees from Intel's payroll. Zisner went on to say that Intel will also perform "portfolio cuts, right-sizing our support organizations, more stringent cost controls in all aspects of our spending, and improved sales and marketing efficiency". It sounds like almost no-one is safe at Intel, especially as portofolio cuts mean that some product lines will either be sold off, or simply just canned in favour of more profitable products. Intel is also betting hard on its IDM 2.0 strategy, where the company is decoupling its hardware and software design teams from its foundry business. Time will tell if this helps restart Intel as a business, but Gelsinger seems to believe that the changes he's implementing at Intel will help turn things around.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) has responded to the recent dramatic reports by Canalys, Gartner, and IDC showing a precipitous drop in Q3 2022 PC shipments. In addition, JPR is providing guidance on the impact to graphics chip and AIB shipments. Jon Peddie, president and founder of JPR, said, "Our advice to clients has been consistent since 2020: The pandemic boom was not a surge in demand brought about by real growth in the market. The PC market is now correcting itself after a period of extraordinary growth spurred on by spending from an overwhelming surge of users working from home."

Peddie continued, "People were forced to work at home in 2020 and 2021, and many needed equipment. As a result, PC sales surged. Those people have what they need, and some of them are going back to the office. They don't need new PCs, and won't for three to five years. So, we are back to the nominal growth of the PC market, which was, and will be again after two quarters' adjustment, tracking GNP growth."

The world is without a doubt entering a recession and now the first rumours of mass layoffs in the tech industry are starting. According to Bloomberg, Intel is considering laying off thousands of employees as a measure to cut costs, as its businesses are slowing down. Bloomberg is mainly citing the PC market, which the publication calls Intel's main business, although Intel's Client Computing Group (CCG) does a lot more than just selling PC chips, but the group was Intel's largest source of revenue in Q2 this year by quite some margin. That said, despite a revenue of US$7.7 billion in Q2, this was down 25 percent compared to 2021, which in all fairness was a record year for most companies in the PC industry.

According to Bloomberg, Intel had 113,700 employees as of July this year and the publication said Intel is considering cutting as much as 20 percent of its sales and marketing staff. Bloomberg is expecting Intel to be looking at reducing fixed costs by 10 to 15 percent, although this is unlikely to affect key parts of Intel's business units. Last quarter, most of Intel's business units made a healthy profit, but only the Network and Edge Group had a significant revenue increase over the same quarter in 2021, with most other groups being down significantly. The third quarter results aren't expected to improve upon things, something that appears to be reflected in Intel's share price, which is down over 50 percent in 2022. That said, all of Intel's competitors are in the same boat and it's likely that we'll see more news about companies that are considering trimming back on their expenses and staff numbers in the near future. Intel is scheduled to report its third quarter earnings on the 27th of October.

According to TrendForce research, rising inflation has weakened demand for consumer products, flattening the peak of peak season. In 3Q22, memory bit consumption and shipments continued to exhibit quarterly decline. Due to a significant decline in memory demand, terminal buyers also delayed purchases, leading to further escalation of supplier inventory pressure. At the same time, the strategies of various DRAM suppliers to increase their market share remain unchanged. There have been cases of "consolidated Q3/Q4 price negotiations" or "negotiating quantity before pricing" in the market, which are the reasons leading to a ballooning of declining DRAM prices to 13~18% in 4Q22.

In terms of PC DRAM, due to weak demand for notebooks, PC OEMs will remain focused on destocking DRAM inventory. While the DRAM supply side has not actually reduced production since operating profit remains favorable, bit output continues to rise and pressure on suppliers' inventory becomes increasingly obvious. From the perspective of DDR4 and DDR5, the price drop forecast in 4Q22 is 13~18% with DDR5 declining more than DDR4. However, as the penetration rate of DDR5 continues to rise, coupled with a higher unit price, the penetration rate of DDR5 in the PC DRAM sector will increase 13~15% in 4Q22, which will buoy the average unit price of overall PC DRAM (combined DDR5 and DDR4) marginally and PC DRAM pricing in 4Q22 is estimated to drop by approximately 10~15%.

During Evercore ISI TMT conference, Intel announced that the company would continue to lose market share, with a possible bounce back in the coming years. According to the latest report, Intel's CEO Pat Gelsinger announced that he expects the company to continue to lose its market share to AMD as the competition has "too much momentum" going for it. AMD's Ryzen and EPYC processors continue to deliver power and efficiency performance figures, which drives customers towards the company. On the other hand, Intel expects a competing product, especially in the data center business with Sapphire Rapids Xeon processors, set to arrive in 2023. Pat Gelsinger noted, "Competition just has too much momentum, and we haven't executed well enough. So we expect that bottoming. The business will be growing, but we do expect that there continues to be some share losses. We're not keeping up with the overall TAM growth until we get later into '25 and '26 when we start regaining share, material share gains."

The only down years that are supposed to show a toll of solid competition are 2022 and 2023. As far as creating a bounceback, Intel targets 2025 and 2026. "Now, obviously, in 2024, we think we're competitive. 2025, we think we're back to unquestioned leadership with our transistors and process technology," noted CEO Gelsinger. Additionally, he had a say about the emerging Arm CPUs competing for the same server market share as Intel and AMD do so, stating that "Well, when we deliver the Forest product line, we deliver power performance leadership versus all Arm alternatives, as well. So now you go to a cloud service provider, and you say, 'Well, why would I go through that butt ugly, heavy software lift to an ARM architecture versus continuing on the x86 family?"

According to the latest TrendForce statistics, revenue of the top ten global IC design houses reached US$39.56 billion in 2Q22, growing 32% YoY. Growth was primarily driven by demand for data centers, networking, IoT, and high-end product portfolios. AMD achieved synergy through mergers and acquisitions. In addition to climbing to third place, the company also posted the highest annual revenue growth rate in 2Q22 at 70%.

Qualcomm continues in the No. 1 position worldwide, exhibiting growth in the mobile phone, RF front-end, automotive, and IoT sectors. Sales of mid/low-end mobile phone APs were weak but demand for high-end mobile phone APs was relatively stable. Company revenue reached US$9.38 billion, or 45% growth YoY. NVIDIA benefitted from expanded application of GPUs in data centers to expand this product category's revenue share past the 50% mark to 53.5%, making up for the 13% YoY slump in its game application business, bringing total revenue to US$7.09 billion, though annual growth rate slowed to 21%. AMD reorganized its business after the addition of Xilinx and Pensando. The company's embedded division revenue increased by 2,228% YoY. In addition, its data center department also made a considerable contribution. AMD posted revenue of US$6.55 billion, achieving 70% growth YoY, highest amongst the top ten. Broadcom's sales performance in semiconductor solutions remained solid and demand for cloud services, data centers, and networking is quite strong. The company's purchase order backlog is still increasing with 2Q22 revenue reaching US$6.49 billion, an annual growth rate of 31%.

According to the latest TrendForce investigations, moving into the second half of 3Q22, the lack of a peak season has led to a delay in inventory destocking. Transactions in the NAND Flash market have been frosty. Buyers are watching passively and tend not to negotiate pricing. Pressure on factory inventory has reached a breaking point and manufacturers are bottoming out pricing in order to make a deal. This move will lead to a further decline in manufacturer pricing. TrendForce once again revises downward 3Q22 NAND Flash wafer contract prices and the decline of pricing is estimated to balloon to 30-35% from the original estimate of 15-20%.

In the past two years, the pandemic has promoted digital transformation and notebook computers and servers have stimulated rapid growth in NAND Flash consumption. In order to satisfy demand, manufacturers have been expanding aggressively, with their processes accelerating the output of 128-layer+ products. However, the 2H22 NAND Flash market situation has deteriorated sharply with the acute correction in purchase order demand for smartphones and laptops indicative of a market oversupply. Looking forward to 2023, the conservative attitudes of various consumer electronics brands may lead to difficulties in improving market conditions in the next year and stimulate suppliers to step up efforts to seize market share.

Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ: STX) (the "Company" or "Seagate"), a world leader in data storage and infrastructure solutions, today announced that it is lowering its business outlook for the fiscal first quarter ending September 30, 2022, against a worsening macro-economic backdrop. Seagate now expects fiscal first quarter revenue of $2.1 billion plus or minus $100 million, which compares to the Company's previous guidance range of $2.5 billion plus or minus $150 million.

"Since our earnings call in mid-July, weaker economic trends in certain Asian regions have amplified customer inventory corrections and supply chain disruptions. We have also seen more cautious buying behavior among global Enterprise / OEM and certain U.S. cloud customers amid ongoing macro-economic uncertainties. These external factors are impacting near-term mass capacity demand while continuing to weigh on the consumer centric legacy markets," said Dave Mosley, Seagate's chief executive officer.

In President Biden's first year in office, the Biden-Harris Administration has implemented an industrial strategy to revitalize domestic manufacturing, create good-paying American jobs, strengthen American supply chains, and accelerate the industries of the future. These policies have spurred an historic recovery in manufacturing, adding 642,000 manufacturing jobs since 2021. Companies are investing in America again, bringing good-paying manufacturing jobs back home. The construction of new manufacturing facilities has increased 116 percent over last year.

Today, President Biden will sign into law the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which will build on this progress, making historic investments that will poise U.S. workers, communities, and businesses to win the race for the 21st century. It will strengthen American manufacturing, supply chains, and national security, and invest in research and development, science and technology, and the workforce of the future to keep the United States the leader in the industries of tomorrow, including nanotechnology, clean energy, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence. The CHIPs and Science Act makes the smart investments so that American to compete in and win the future.

Corsair Gaming, Inc. ("Corsair" or the "Company"), a leading global provider and innovator of high-performance gear for gamers and content creators, today announced financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2022. Andy Paul, Chief Executive Officer of Corsair, stated, "Headwinds from Q1 persisted through Q2, which is seasonally the lowest quarter for us, with macro-economic headwinds affecting consumer spending on gaming gear, especially in Europe combined with global inflation, the continued Russia and Ukraine conflict, and high freight costs. This resulted in a buildup of inventory both in our warehouses as well as in the retail channel, thus causing our channel partners to delay ordering while they clear this stock.

Despite the challenging environment, we continue to see positive underlying growth trends in the gaming hardware sector, and we see spending levels significantly above pre -pandemic levels. We are also starting to see more enthusiasts building gaming PCs again as graphics cards are now more readily available at reasonable prices. We saw very positive signs during Amazon Prime week, with component activity significantly higher than in 2021, both in Europe as well as in the United States. While we are disappointed with the lower results in Q2, we are very pleased to see positive market activity recently and with our channel inventory moving back into line during Q2 and Q3 2022, we expect demand for our products to recover well as we finish the year and look forward to an exciting 2023."

AMD today announced a strategic collaboration with ECARX, a global mobility tech company. The companies will work together on an in-vehicle computing platform for next-generation electric vehicles (EVs), expected to be in mass production for global rollout in late 2023. The ECARX digital cockpit will be the first in-vehicle platform to be offered with AMD Ryzen Embedded V2000 processors and AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs along with ECARX hardware and software.

Combining the extensive experience in automotive digital cockpit design of ECARX with AMD advanced computing power and stunning visual graphic rendering capabilities, the companies aim to deliver an innovative in-car experience. The digital cockpit will launch with advanced features including driver information mode, heads-up display, rear seat entertainment, multiple-displays, multi-zone voice recognition, high-end gaming and a full 3D user experience.

As The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 heads to President Biden's desk for his signature, following its passage in Congress, OSTP's Dr. Alondra Nelson is releasing the following statement: "The bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 is the most significant American investment in science, technology, and innovation in a generation. It will revitalize and advance U.S. leadership in science and technology, spur U.S. competitiveness and economic development, and bolster our domestic semiconductor supply chains. Most important, it will deliver opportunities for Americans all across the nation.

For working Americans, the stakes of this legislation could not be higher. Semiconductor chips power our daily lives, from the telecommunications that keep us all connected, and medical devices that keep our loved ones alive, to financial institutions that help secure our families' futures, and the computers from which millions of Americans run their businesses. They are a door to a future of innovation, progress, and economic security.

United Microelectronics Corporation ("UMC" or "The Company"), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced its consolidated operating results for the second quarter of 2022. Second quarter consolidated revenue was NT$72.06 billion, increasing 13.6% QoQ from NT$63.42 billion in 1Q22. Compared to a year ago, 2Q22 revenue grew 41.5% YoY from NT$50.91 billion in 2Q21. Consolidated gross margin for 2Q22 reached 46.5%. Net income attributable to the shareholders of the parent was NT$21.33 billion, with earnings per ordinary share of NT$1.74.

Jason Wang, UMC co-president, said, "In the second quarter, we delivered results in line with guidance, thanks to continuous strong demand for UMC's differentiated processes across our end markets. Overall wafer shipments rose 4.3% from the previous quarter, while higher average selling price and a favorable foreign exchange rate lifted second-quarter gross margin to 46.5%. Revenue from our 22/28 nm portfolio increased 29% sequentially, driven by the additional capacity at Fab 12A P5 that came online during the second quarter. We are confident in the long-term growth prospects of our 22/28 nm business, which now represents 22% of UMC's overall wafer revenue, and has demonstrated solid traction for OLED display drivers, image processors, WiFi, and automotive applications. As structural trends drive semiconductor content increase in end devices from smartphones to automobiles, it is our conviction that 28 nm is a long-lasting node that will be important for many existing and emerging applications for years to come."

Microsoft Corp. today announced the following results for the quarter ended June 30, 2022, as compared to the corresponding period of last fiscal year:

• Revenue was $51.9 billion and increased 12% (up 16% in constant currency)
• Operating income was $20.5 billion and increased 8% (up 14% in constant currency)
• Net income was $16.7 billion and increased 2% (up 7% in constant currency)
• Diluted earnings per share was $2.23 and increased 3% (up 8% in constant currency)

"We see real opportunity to help every customer in every industry use digital technology to overcome today's challenges and emerge stronger," said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive officer of Microsoft. "No company is better positioned than Microsoft to help organizations deliver on their digital imperative - so they can do more with less."

According to TrendForce research, global LCD monitor shipments reached 72.3 million units in 1H22, a level on par with to the same period in 2021. Certain whole devices orders in 4Q21 were deferred to 1Q22 due to logistics and transportation issues. In addition, some brands felt optimistic regarding the outlook for 2022, so they initiated aggressive promotions to stimulate sales in 1Q22. Although the Russian-Ukrainian war and rising inflation have seriously impacted demand in the European consumer market since Q2, demand for business models is still positive, which in turn bridges the gap left by the consumer market.

Looking forward to LCD monitor market trends in 2H22, TrendForce indicates, since most orders for business models had been digested by the end of 2Q22, coupled with the sluggishness of new orders, overall business demand momentum has not been as good as in 1H22. Consumer models are affected by rising inflation and interest rate hikes in the United States and market consumption continues in lethargy. LCD monitor shipments are expected to decrease by 5.4% and 2.4% QoQ in 3Q22 and 4Q22, respectively. The proportion of shipments in the first and second half of the year will fall at approximately 51.7: 48.3.

Today ASML Holding NV (ASML) has published its 2022 second-quarter results. Q2 net sales of €5.4 billion, gross margin of 49.1%, net income of €1.4 billion. Record quarterly net bookings in Q2 of €8.5 billion. ASML expects Q3 2022 net sales between €5.1 billion and €5.4 billion and a gross margin between 49% and 50%. Expected sales growth for the full year of around 10%.

The value of fast shipments*in 2022 leading to delayed revenue recognition into 2023 is expected to increase from around €1 billion to around €2.8 billion.
"Our second-quarter net sales came in at €5.4 billion with a gross margin of 49.1%. Demand from our customers remains very strong, as reflected by record net bookings in the second quarter of €8.5 billion, including €5.4 billion from 0.33 NA and 0.55 NA EUV systems as well as strong DUV bookings.

According to TrendForce, market oversupply intensified in 2Q22 due to lagging demand and continued NAND Flash output and process advancement. The market consensus is a disappointing 2H22 peak season for consumer electronics including notebooks, TVs, and smartphones. Material inventory levels continue to rise and has become a risk to the supply chain. Due to slow destocking among distributors and a conservative stocking approach among clients, inventory problems have bubbled over upstream onto the supply side and sellers are under increased pressure to sell. TrendForce estimates, due to the rapid deterioration of the balance between supply and demand, the drop in NAND Flash pricing will expand to 8~13% in 3Q22, and this decline may continue into 4Q22.

In terms of Client SSD, due to weak consumer demand, various PC brands have significantly reduced their purchase order volume in 3Q22 in order to digest 1H22 SSD inventory. As suppliers shift focus to 176-layer client SSD, 176-layer QLC SSDs have begun to ship, and YMTC looks to expand shipment of notebook client SSDs in 2H22, price competition has become increasingly fierce, forcing manufacturers to increase price concessions to incentivize clients to up order volume. Thus, the decline in client SSD pricing is expected to expand to 8~13% in 3Q22.

With only three major players left in the hard disk drive market-Seagate, Toshiba and WDC-the shipment of hard drives ought to be fairly stable, but demand is down across all manufacturers by anything from close to 30 percent to around 40 percent in the case of Toshiba. According to data from Trendfocus that was posted by Storage Newsletter, demand is down across all market segments or at best case flat compared to last year. Nearline enterprise drives remained flat at around 19 million units compared to last year, but performance enterprise storage is down to around 2.5 million units for the last quarter.

On the desktop and consumer electronics side of things, things are even more dire, with both 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drive shipments dropping by 30 and 40 percent respectively. Around 13 million 3.5-inch hard drives and 11 million 2.5-inch drives were still shipped in Q2, but with lower demand for computers and more and more computers moving to SSDs, hard drives have been relegated to backup duties when it comes to most consumer purchases. Seagate was the company least affected by the drop in demand, but is still seeing close to a 30 percent drop in demand, with WDC second at over 30 percent and Toshiba, as mentioned, by maybe as much as 40 percent, which doesn't bode well for the company, as it's the smallest manufacturer of hard drives.

Based on a report from IC Insights, it appears that the demand for semiconductors and memory is starting to slow down. The slowdown is industry wide, with most major players having seen a reduction in sales in June compared to May. Although the report is focused on Taiwanes semiconductor companies, it also mentions Micron, who is expecting a slowdown in the third quarter of this year. Micron is reportedly expecting a drop in sales by as much as 17 percent, although this past quarter the company saw an increase in sales by 11 percent compared to the previous quarter, or 19 percent compared to last year, so it could simply be that the market is starting to normalise.

As for the Taiwanese semiconductor companies, TSMC saw a reduction in sales of five percent in June, although its competitor UMC saw an increase of two percent. Two other Taiwanese foundries, Powerchip and Vanguard, saw a decrease of four percent and an increase of three percent respectively, which shows that the foundry businesses are seeing change based on the type of chips they make. Apart from Winbond and Macronix, the other four companies in the report saw a decrease in sales by anything between two and 26 percent. Novatek, a manufacturer of semiconductors for the display industry saw the biggest dip in sales, with memory manufacturer Nanya seeing a drop of 16 percent. It should be pointed out that Novatek saw an increase in sales of 78 percent during the pandemic, which suggests their customers might not be seeing the same demand for their end products as they did over the past two years. For now, this could just be a slowdown over the summer months, when demand is usually quite low, but it could also be an indication of a return to a more normalised market.

Worldwide shipments of traditional PCs declined 15.3% year over year to 71.3 million units in the second quarter of 2022 (2Q22), according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. This was the second consecutive quarter of lower shipments following two years of growth. The decline was worse than expected as supply and logistics further deteriorated due to the lockdowns in China and persistent macroeconomic headwinds.

"Fears over a recession continue to mount and weaken demand across segments," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's Mobile Device trackers. "Consumer demand for PCs has weakened in the near term and is at risk of perishing in the long term as consumers become more cautious about their spending and once again grow accustomed to computing across device types such as phones and tablets. Meanwhile, commercial demand has been more robust although it has also declined as businesses delay purchases."

According to TrendForce investigations, foundries have seen a wave of order cancellations with the first of these revisions originating from large-size Driver IC and TDDI, which rely on mainstream 0.1X μm and 55 nm processes, respectively. Although products such as MCU and PMIC were previously in short supply, foundries' capacity utilization rate remained roughly at full capacity through their adjustment of product mix. However, a recent wave cancellations have emerged for PMIC, CIS, and certain MCU and SoC orders. Although still dominated by consumer applications, foundries are beginning to feel the strain of the copious order cancellations from customers and capacity utilization rate has officially declined.

Looking at trends in 2H22, TrendForce indicates, in addition to no relief from the sustained downgrade of driver IC demand, inventory adjustment has begun for smartphones, PCs, and TV-related peripheral components such as SoCs, CIS, and PMICs, and companies are beginning to curtail their wafer input plans with foundries. This phenomenon of order cancellations is occurring simultaneously in 8-inch and 12-inch fabs at nodes including 0.1X μm, 90/55 nm, and 40/28 nm. Not even the advanced 7/6 nm processes are immune.

According to the latest TrendForce research, despite the rapid weakening of overall consumer demand in 1H22, DRAM manufacturers previously presented a tough stance on price negotiations and gave little ground, steadily conveying inventory pressure from buyers to sellers. Facing uncertain peak-season demand in 2H22, some DRAM suppliers have begun effectively expressing clear intentions to cut prices, especially in the server field, where demand is relatively stable, in order to reduce inventory pressure. This situation will cause 3Q22 DRAM pricing to drop from the previous 3~8% to nearly 10% QoQ. If a price war is incited due to companies competing for sales, the drop in prices may exceed 10%.

PC OEMs have continuously downgraded their shipment prospects. With average DRAM inventory levels at more than two months, unless a huge price incentive exists, there is no urgent demand for procurement. At the same time, thanks to continuous adoption of the advanced 1Z/1alpha process, supply continued to increase in 3Q22. DDR4 output could not be effectively reduced due to high pricing limiting the penetration rate of DDR5. The price decline of PC DRAM in 3Q22 is revised to 5~10%.

According to TrendForce research, terminal demand remains weak due to repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war, rising inflation, and China's pandemic lockdowns as monitor brands began to reduce purchasing of LCD monitor panels in 2Q22. LCD monitors panel shipments in 2Q22 are estimated at 42.5 million units, down 11.3% QoQ. According to TrendForce analysis, monitor brands set fairly high shipment targets in early 2022. Coupled with the impact of LCD monitor panel shortages in 2021, monitor brands gravitated towards overbuying panels in 1Q22 to prepare for ensuing shipments. Driven by strong demand from monitor brands, shipments of LCD monitor panels reached 47.9 million units in 1Q22, up 20% YoY, the highest level for the period since 2012.

However, due to changes in the international political and economic landscape in February this year, the market for consumer models has cooled and monitor brands have successively revised their LCD monitor shipment targets downward and simultaneously lowered their panel purchase volumes. In the face of interest rate hikes by the world's major central banks and slowing economic growth, companies have also begun exercising caution in terms of capital expenditures, which has slowed demand for business-grade LCD monitors. In the past, inventory issues emerged and the overall market became oversupplied when monitor brands overstocked as consumer and business demand gradually cooled.

AMD is preparing to update its mobile sector with the latest IP in the form of Zen4 CPU cores and RDNA3 graphics. According to Red Gaming Tech, we have specifications of upcoming processor families. First, we have AMD Dragon Range mobile processors representing a downsized Raphael design for laptops. Carrying Zen4 CPU cores and RDNA2 integrated graphics, these processors are meant to power high-performance laptops with up to 16 cores and 32 threads. Being a direct competitor to Intel's Alder Lake-HX, these processors also carry an interesting naming convention. The available SKUs include AMD Ryzen 5 7600HX, Ryzen 7 7800HX, Ryzen 9 7900HX, and Ryzen 9 7980HX design with a massive 16-core configuration. These CPUs are envisioned to run along with more powerful dedicated graphics, with clock speeds of 4.8-5.0+ GHz.

Next, we have AMD Phoenix processors, which take Dragon Range's design to a higher level thanks to the newer graphics IP. Having Zen4 cores, Phoenix processors carry upgraded RDNA3 graphics chips to provide a performance level similar to NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3060 Max-Q SKU, all in one package. These APUs will come in four initial configurations: Ryzen 5 7600HS, Ryzen 7 7800HS, Ryzen 9 7900HS, and Ryzen 9 7980HS. While maxing out at eight cores, these APUs will compensate with additional GPU compute units with a modular chiplet design. AMD Phoenix is set to become AMD's first chiplet design launching for the laptop market, and we can expect more details as we approach the launch date.